Todd McClellan

Whoo child these artists are just a never ending barrage of...well, awesome.  My latest find (though I'm certainly not pioneering anything...) is a photographer by the name of Todd McClellan.  I came across him while going on my ritual hunt for the next creative monkey to catch my eye and steal my heart. 

Now...this isn't to say that I've fallen madly in love with Mister McClellan.  Rather I've become quite intrigued by his latest body of work, since it seems that he is more versed in using his photography skills for commercial related materials as well as automotives, places, etc.

This last one's my fave.

Now his most recent body of work, which tackles a much more conceptual based (at least, what I can tell from my perspective) topic seems to have come out of left field.  Or chances are he finally is in a place where he can appropriately express himself outside of mainstream venues that help to pay the bills.  Hell, he probably loves all of it and I'm just being silly.  We'll never know.

The latest in his new series is called "Disassembled," and it is a series of photographs that goes to meticulously take apart old pieces of technology that we've taken for granted and organize them in such a way that it is photo ready right down to the itty bitty washers and pins that hold everything together.  This is definitely a kind of focus and dedication I can understand, and in all seriousness I hope to someday be able to lose myself so completely in my work that what comes as a result are a bunch of tiny minutely detailed pieces of radical awesome.

His work has been examined by DesignBoom , Juxtapoz, Twisted Sifter and LostAtEMinor , sites that I try to visit religiously to seek out what's going on in the art world. ( The last two I just added to my repertoire, and I hope that I'll continue to be intrigued by what I can pull from there.)

What makes this work really stand out is, simply, its precision and attention to detail.  This is an artist who has taken the time to really examine the makeups of what we have used in our world and magnifies the definition by forcing the viewer to really look at everything that makes up what seems to be a very basic mechanized tool for every day use.  Push a button and it works, right?  But do we really think about the textures and details that make the whole for what it is?  Do we really see that?

It's times like these that it helps to just stop, take a minute, breathe and...be.  Just be.

Shaun Tan

Well friends it looks like I've found myself another artist to become twitterpated over.  Which is wonderful for me since I'm stuck at the PDX airport waiting on mine and my family's flight to San Diego to watch my brother graduate from the Marine Corp Boot Camp.  Alas!

But, *ahem* onward!

The artist who has recently captured my eye is the inimitable Shaun Tan.  He's originally from Perth, Australia, which is where a good chunk of his inspiration came from for consistently implementing the clear open Western Australian skies in his work.  He'd recently won an Oscar for working on the animated short "The Lost Thing," which was based on one of his already illustrated picture books.


Excerpt from "The Lost Thing"


He's a tireless worker, finding more pleasure derived from creating his next illustrations in the quiet of his home with wife, parrot and budgies.  I add this little tid bit in because honestly...how often do you find someone really living such a quintessential life?  I'm a fan, essentially.  I'd be doing something almost entirely mirror-like, except I'd have an artistic wife and a few moose sized dogs gallivanting around the home.


Excerpt from "The Red Tree"


His childhood to adult life is also a classic progression to fame.  Never his goal, but as a child he was known as the "good drawer," which was better than being known as "the short kid."  A quiet serious fellow, he attended Balcatta Senior High School in the arts program graduating in 1991 and attained his Bachelor of Arts at University of Western Australia graduating in 1995.  Since then he'd been working as a freelance illustrator and taking whatever gigs came his way to hone his craft and pay the bills.

Now, obviously, things have taken quite the drastic turn.  Over the past 16 years he has won numerous awards for his picture books and continues to wow people with his insane ability to narrate using hardly any words to accompany his visuals.  There isn't really a specific age group that he aims for, he just wants to tell a good story.

And boy I can't wait until I get my grubby little paws on his stuff.  This is more than just exciting for me.  This is the kind of work I'd like to someday aspire to.  I've no idea what my style is yet, other than it being light-hearted whimsy based material.  Which doesn't always stay on paper.  But at least I have an idea of where my style lays!
 


The Rabbits


The Arrival


Tales From Outer Suburbia

Ah, finally! An ART blog.

*note: the links are apparently the same color as the rest of the font in this blog, but the names I've dropped all have links to them*

I'm always on new missions, it seems.  New goals, new everything.  Something to rebuild what was, because clearly the direction I've been going has been useless.  At least that's the rumor.  But really.  I've just been letting my brain go to mush because I've spent so much time pushing to do the things that I have to do.  And that's no fun.  Where is the pleasure to be taken from doing the things that I want to do?  Where have those days, gone, eh?

So, without further ado, I introduce y'all to Dustin Nguyen:

And Ashley Wood:

Ben Templesmith:

These are some of many illustrators that have inspired me.  Their styles are bold, punchy, and while there are other illustrators like Darick Robertson, Matt Wagner (my all time FAVORITE for creating the brilliance of Grendel), these guys stick out pretty solidly.  

Also notice how they're all guys?  Eh?  ;P

I need to do more research into female illustrators.  From the few that I've seen I haven't been too impressed, and maybe I just haven't given enough due credit.  But perhaps someday I'll be swingin' with the rest of the guys and proving that I'm worth my salt.

First I gotta sit my butt down and actually draw something first. ;)

Untitled

In my quiet I imagine there to be open land and space.  

Wintry wonderland, where the tree branches reach like 

fingers or veins into the sky, creating shapes of woman's

legs and letting you know how old the earth is.  I want to

kiss them and run my fingers along the bark, the dry skin

no one wants to touch.  If inside such quiet you should find

me sitting in my snow pants on the roots sucking in all the

cold air until my lungs and nostrils burn like lungs and nostrils

are supposed to burn when the cold is dry, dry, dry.

I imagine there's more to life than just waking up and feeling like

you're just another day.  Poetry just in keeping your eyes open

and staring into clouds, waiting for birds to come out of the pillows

and flex their deceptively solid wings, their bones so hollow you could

whistle music through their joints and pretend you're a kite on a string

while you swing and sing with the windy catches and dips overlooking

God's vastness and valleys that remember you to be so big even though

you make out to see yourself so small.

I feel like Bobby, want like Claire and cry like Jonathan.   My fingers are 

longer than God made them out to be and if I stretch myself out far enough

then I can tap your shoulders and then you'll know that I was standing there.

The Motion.

Well.  It's official.  I'm finally beginning personal transition.  Not only in specific regards to my current stasis of being out of a 2.5 year relationship, but just in regards to what I want out of things.  Which I've talked about in various layers.  Same thing but a new detail each time sort of deal.

As a wonderful friend of mine put it, I'm finally having some emotional reserve for myself.  Part of me will always feel sad in a way to see this huge chapter close but I can tell you I am just as excited to transition into the next one.  I'm not so much living in the past like I love to do but taking what was along with me and preparing to collage the new right on top.  Not so much so that my past becomes encased and sealed away, but so that the layers keep on building and expanding over time.  This in a weird way is the kind of complexity I was subconsciously hoping for, and so I'm just gonna ride it till it's time to catch another wave and then whoop and holler my way to shore and get the bonfire party really lit up.  Man I can't wait for that day.

So!  To start off, here is the current state of my "room":

Yes, that is my See's uniform you see in the forefront on the left.  I'll probably be bringin it back come Fall.  It's good money.

I can install hooks and things along the wooden beams overhead and hang some pretty sweet lanterns or something if I so choose.  I'm still working on figuring out what I'd like to get as far as lighting goes.

The shelves to the right of my dresser were already there, so I can turn that into something for later on...

This little nook I'm MOST excited about.  I can't wait to stuff it with more music gizmos once I figure out how to get the most out of my keyboard.  And I wanna get the most out of making and having shelving space as much as is humanly possible.  

There is so much rawness to where I'm at right now...and maybe I'm being all head in the clouds, maybe I'm overshooting...but really I want this to be my creative space.  I'll stop being so self centered soon, I promise.  I even make myself gag on occasion. :P

I would like to figure out how something like this is accomplished.  Stencils and layering...this is the kind of vibe I'd like to have set up.  Maybe not quite with the dead fish, but this is what I was thinking in terms of what I wanna put on my concrete walls.  There will probably be hot ladies or something, I'd imagine.

Well, there's my day in the life.  And some of my thoughts a bit, art wise.  I'll try to talk more about that later. ;)  

Push.

I'm slowly noticing more and more that I'm not the kind of person who does well when I don't have a lot of work to do.  Work as in the hours I put in to get the monies.  That sort of thing.  Although I've got the sleep part down.  Sleep I could do for eons, since I spend more time losing it than gaining it.  Ah...youth?  

So what is the appropriate reaction for a young workaholic like myself when there aren't enough hours to make the days fly by?  I cook.  A lot.  And listen to a ton of blues, bluegrass, and soul.  I daydream of what I could be writing about in my head but by the time it's ready to hit the page I've instantly forgotten.  I walk my friend's dog, I stare at stupid social networking sites like Facebook, Tumblr, and OkCupid (shush, don't judge).  For whatever reason my insane urges to establish human contact rev up to an all time high because when I am left to my own stillness it actually drives me quite mad.  I'm not sure what to do with all this....time.  And soon I'll be back to the patterns of having no time at all to do anything.

So why not try to fill it with more things?  Like...?

I keep talking about drawing more, sculpting more, working on putting together strings of animations to develop whatever craft I think I might have up my sleeve.  I have no idea what I would create, I just know the kinds of things I would like to create and like to see created.  Things that have a darker macabre sort of vibe, like a scene at an old carnival.  Or something lighthearted and whimsical, like a child riding a bicycle on a bridge of dreams, the speed of her pedaling determining how fast the piano notes fly while she rides through a city made of paper stacks held together by wishes and segmented yarn pieces.  Something.

I keep thinking about music.  Making it, breathing it, doing something that would allow me to dance the way I hear the world.

I felt the world through food today.  I made ravioli from scratch for the second time, and I think that it was necessary for me to do that.  Kneading dough is probably one of the more therapeutic things I've come across, especially with all that has happened recently.  When I finally get time to myself I am cooking.  And the more back to roots basics I can begin with it, the better I am.  This whole process takes about three and a half to four hours.  Who the hell can meditate on food for that long?  Apparently I can.

This time I made the dough like I saw it on this Italian website, where you just pour the flour onto the counter and make a hole in the middle to have it look like a volcano.  Then you put the two eggs in there, some olive oil and some water (or milk if you're stuffing the pasta) and then you just have this gooey mess until your hands mould it and create this dough.  And you keep working into it, and pushing your palms into the dough, pushing so hard you launch yourself off the floor and almost over the whole counter itself.  (though I'm quite tiny, so maybe it's just me)  You take it in your hands and squeeze and turn, and fold it over itself again and again until there is some elasticity to the dough.  Let it sit..and then go to other things.  I'm old school (and probably a little stubborn) so I use the good ol' knife and cutting board to mince and dice my ingredients.

Alcohol is a good companion when losing yourself in these culinary intimacies, but I've also found that hooka works just as well.  It's soothing in a weird way.  I'm sure my lungs will tell me to fuck off later down the road.

Now there are all these crazy leftovers for me to do with as I please.  Dough, garlic, ravioli stuffing, pasta sauce...I could make a lot of different things.  And that makes me happy, that I can spend my time without anyone else around.  Just tinkering away, creating as I understand how things are to be created (and then putting my own spin on it), and having nothing but my two hands working ceaselessly.  While I make the food it's hard to not have my mind drift to inviting a ton of people over and feeding all of them and having a great time filling the living room with smiles, snuggles and laughter.  It's hard to not want to throw spontaneous food parties and have us dance the night away stumbling with our half empty bottles of wine clutched in our hands.

I think it would be wonderful to just lean into another human body, smiling and breathing full bodied flavors of home cooked meals and cabernet into their shirt collars, ties, jackets, dresses or neck.  Dance the evening away like you never meant it for anything else, and love with everything you own and kiss like it is the very sustenance to move your heart for just a few more beats.

Live with passion, I suppose.  I think that's what I want to do.  Live with passion.  I certainly dream with it.  Why not bring it into reality?

Just Dance

It figures that just when I start getting into the realm of really wanting to dance (not just club dance, but stylistic dancing...) one of my jobs starts pooping out on me.  So I'm back to applying for work in hopes that I can just have a regular joe schmoe job that will help me pay the bills and I can still get my butt through school.   But my thoughts on that are for a whole other rant entirely.

So last night I did Bollywood dancing for the first time.  I really wasn't doing Bollywood at all, just dancing how I felt to the music that was being played.  My heart will gradually skip more beats the more I look to see where DJ Anjali is playing.  She's a lovely soul, and is so into the music she spins that it was hard not to appreciate everything about the night.

And the fact that I had a hot date didn't hurt either.  Which, by the by, I've found that the girl is even more smokin' hot if she is actually down for the sweating that happens when one is dancing up a storm.  By that I mean if I'm gonna dance as hard as I love to do and sweat like I do...and actually be called sexy for it...well then you have my attention for as long as you want.  Or for as many dances that we have together.

I love to dance and put everything I have into the movements.  Whether it's a martial arts form, sparring, or working on martial arts drills, it all boils down to being a kind of dance.  It can leave you tired so good it's about the equivalent of post sex euphoria or will get you so jazzed you'll want to wrestle a bear.  Maybe you'll just be sweaty tired happy just for moving your body to where the rhythm took you.

There's a reason massage therapists comment on how well my hips move when checking for anything muscle or joint related on my body.

Now, back to Bollywood.

As I said, I wasn't really dancing specifically to the Bollywood style, because all I knew was that it was a crazy Indian musical extravaganza that's been around since the 50s, with the films lasting about 3 hours with intermission.  The reason why these movie/musical deals are as long as they are is because Indian people expect the whole she-bang when it comes to paying to see entertainment on the big screen.  A dance number of some sort, as well as love interests and dare devil thrills are things that absolutely must be included in the film.  It's pretty intense.

Long story short, it was just a blast.  I hope I can do more.

What I would also really like to do is go blues and tango dancing.  Yes there is the idealized sexiness of it all, and the fact that I've actually gone blues dancing a few times and participated in the sexy is just too much to resist.  How can you not feel like a Sassy McSasserson when you've got dancing game?  There's only so much to be won from being able to drop it like it's hot, but to be able to apply specific dance techniques that's about joining your very skeleton to the notes that hit the floor with intention and damn near animalistic base sensual drive?  You tell me where there isn't room to be so hypnotized by something as captivating as this.

But...all in good time.  Where there's a will there's a way and where there's music you can bet your sweet ass I'll be there shakin' my booty to it all until I drop from exhaustion.